One example of a conventional binding device constituting the background of the present invention and a file applied therewith is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent No. 4288861 (see Patent Document 1). The binding device disclosed in Patent Document 1 is a conventional binding device and it was devised to solve such a problem that when an operation lever is unlocked, a free end side of the operation lever must be applied with a force acting in a horizontal direction departing from a support wall portion simultaneously with pressing the free end side to an installation face side of the operation member, so that locking and unlocking of the operation member can be performed by only applying a force acting in one direction to the operation member.
The binding device of Patent Document 1 is a binding device provided with an operation member provided such that one end side thereof is supported by a base and the other end side thereof is movable as a free end, a pressing member provided so as to be capable of coming close to the base and separating from the same according to movement of the operation member, a spring member provided between the pressing member and the operation member, and a locking means for locking the operation member when the pressing member is set at a binding position, wherein
the operation member is provided with a first and second operation regions, and
such a configuration is adopted that when the first operation region is operated in a predetermined direction, the operation member is locked to maintain the pressing member at the binding position while the lock is unlocked to allow separation of the pressing member from the base when the second operation region is operated in the predetermined direction, so that a binding device which can obtain convenience of operations can be provided. Further, such a convenience that unlocking is made possible by only operating the second operation region in the same operation direction as the operation direction applied to the first operation region can be obtained. That is, since it becomes unnecessary to perform application of a pressing force to the operation member and application of a force for moving the operation member in a horizontal direction simultaneously unlike the conventional binding device, an operation force to the operation member can be applied securely. In addition, it can be solved that deformation such as torsion is induced to the operation member.